


Failure, Fear, and Pain

by lightsinthedistance



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Comfort, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of loss, One Shot, PTSD, Panic, Panic Attacks, Psychological Trauma, Third Person POV, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27238735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsinthedistance/pseuds/lightsinthedistance
Summary: “Each rumble of thunder was an explosion in which he lost his pilots. Each lightning strike was a flash grenade that he was not able to recover from fast enough to save his friends. Each of the both were a reminder of his failure, fear, and pain.”Reader helps Poe through a panic attack triggered by a storm.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Original Character(s), Poe Dameron/Original Female Character(s), Poe Dameron/Reader
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Failure, Fear, and Pain

Damage. It was a remarkably prevalent thing. Especially in war. Emotional damage, physical damage, and above all, psychological damage. Every soldier had something. She knew her own. Fireworks. Always fireworks. They sounded like blaster shots to her, pumping her full of fear and adrenaline. Made her shake like a blade of grass in a dying wind. 

She remembered the night her and Poe had spent on Coruscant during the yearly festival. The sky had exploded with red, blue, yellow, green sparks, signifying a free, liberated galaxy. It’d felt like anything but for her. She’d curled up in the desk chair she was sitting in and refused to leave, no matter how much Poe pleaded with her, and she’d spent that night clinging to him with a terrified insistence.

Poe had his own triggers too. For him, it was storms. In his head, the rumbles of the thunder were explosions, and the strikes of lightning were flash grenades. She recalled the first time she’d been with him during a storm with an acute vividness. The moment the first hit of lightning and thunder had struck, he’d pushed her to the ground and thrown himself on top of her, shielding her from a nonexistent threat with his own body. 

He’d been embarrassed beyond belief, and she’d assured him that it was nothing to be ashamed of. It was a night filled with tears and soft touches between the both of them, revealing their past to the other, revealing what kept them up at night. 

And tonight was when that fear came to haunt him. 

Loud cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning woke her in the middle of the night. It’d been a light rain when she’d fallen prey to sleep, but the sky had grown angry, weeping upon the soil, lashing out in rage with electricity and sound. It inadvertently lashed out at Poe too.

When she cracked her eyes open, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt off like usual, a thin sheen of a nervous sweat on his skin. His hands were over his ears, his head bent down to the ground, as if trying to deprive himself of as much sensory input as he could.

He rocked back and forth ever so slightly, softly muttering something under his breath. She frowned, sitting up and lightly placing a hand on his shoulder, something he jumped at. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly. His eyes were red. “Did I wake you?”

She shook her head, a knot in her chest at the sight of the state he was in. Wordlessly, she grasped his arm, pulling him back down beside her, gently wrapping her arms around him.

She herself jumped as another crack of lighting and bolt of thunder struck. There was no denying that the resemblance between the sound of the latter and an explosion was uncanny, and there was no denying that it bothered her too. Just not as much as it did him.

He shook in her arms, his head buried in the crook of her neck, perhaps in a desperate attempt to block out any light from the lightning. “How long have you been up?” she whispered.

He sighed. “I don’t know. Half an hour?”

Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t you wake me, love?”

He finally looked at her, a stressed look etched into his features. “You need your sleep.”

She left it at that, knowing that he would not budge at any argument in protest. She only held him, murmuring sweet nothings into his ear, running her hands through his curls. 

The storm only swelled as the minutes passed, the instances of thunder and lightning growing more and more frequent. With it, came his own rise in anxiety. Each rumble of thunder was an explosion in which he lost his pilots. Each lightning strike was a flash grenade that he was not able to recover from fast enough to save his friends. Each of the both were a reminder of his failure, fear, and pain.

Before he knew it, he was having a full-blown panic attack, his breath coming in short gasps, struggling to obtain air. He vaguely felt her forcing him to sit up, felt her hand on his stomach, heard her soft murmurs telling him to breath. 

He didn’t know how long it went on, how long he was stuck in the space between the past and the present, reliving his darkest memories in his mind. It could’ve been seconds, it could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours.

“Baby, listen to my voice.” He didn’t know what changed, but something finally broke through his dark headspace, barely permeating his mind. He didn’t interpret it as words, only as a familiar sound, one that made him feel safe. “Concentrate on it and breathe,” she said softly, pressing her forehead to his, feeling his warm breath on her skin. “Can you do that for me, love?”

He nodded slightly, forcing himself to focus on the sound. Nothing else. No memories, no thoughts of loss, no war. Just her. Only her.

“You’re not there,” she promised, her fingers interlaced with his. “You’re here…you’re safe…with me.”

Like all things, his panic began to subside. The room returned around him. The gentle glow of the lamp she’d turned on reached him. Her voice and the soft feel of her touch anchored him to reality.

The storm stopped as quickly as it came, and she stood, pouring him a glass of water and pressing it into his hands. He drank it in four big gulps. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

She sat on her knees on the bed in front of him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips and looking upon him with soft eyes. “Are you alright?”

He nodded, but that was a lie. And she knew it was a lie. So she did the only thing she could possibly do for him. She was there. She held him till he slept, and when she spoke just before he went under, it sounded as if she were at the end of a tunnel. “I love you,” she whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> what’d you think??


End file.
